Panelists Speak About Transgender Experience

Members of the Columbia community discussed how race affects the transgender experience at a Common Meal co-hosted by the Office of the University Chaplain and Columbia University and Barnard College Black Heritage Month and held last night in the basement of St. Paul's Chapel.

Two panelists, Moshay Moses, an African-American woman of transgendered experience and deaconess for the Metropolitan Community Church of New York, and Pauline Park, chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy, spoke about the experience of transgendered people of color before opening up the floor to a general group discussion.

Chaplain-sponsored Common Meals occur two to three times each month and provide a forum for members of the University community to "discuss ideas and opinions about Columbia's past, present, and future," the Earl Hall Center Web site said.

"In the media we have fairly restrictive versions of transgendered," Park said. "Often they're white, middle- to upper-class, male to female transitions."

Much of the conversation centered on the experience of transgendered people of color, and on how people interact with people of transgendered experience in public places like restrooms.

"It's important that when we look at what is going on in society-racism-that that reflects what's going on in the trans experience," Moses said.

Park agreed with the statement. "Transgendered people of color face racism within the white community and also transgendered phobia within the colored community," she said.

After each panelist spoke, the floor was opened to the audience to ask questions about personal experiences, some of which dealt with sharing public bathrooms with others.

Park said that there is no legal framework for restricting access to public restrooms, but rather that it is a "social restriction" that makes people feel uncomfortable while using a bathroom other than that of their associated biological gender.

"People who get harassed in restrooms, it doesn't have to do with their identification, it has to do with passing," Park said, explaining that "passing" indicated a man of transgendered experience who could pass for a woman, or vice versa.

E. Alex Jung, CC '07, former president of the Columbia Queer Alliance and Spectator opinion columnist, who currently works for the Office of the University Chaplain, said he thought the Common Meals are a good way to discuss important but perhaps unrecognized topics.

"It's how you facilitate community," he said. "It's a more casual space, where people have a safe space to talk about issues that may not be in the mainstream."